The Poison King
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15
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Average rating4
A new account of one of Rome's most relentless but least understood foes. Claiming Alexander the Great and Darius of Persia as ancestors, Mithradates inherited a wealthy Black Sea kingdom at age fourteen after his mother poisoned his father. He fled into exile and returned in triumph to become a ruler of superb intelligence and fierce ambition. Hailed as a savior by his followers and feared as a second Hannibal by his enemies, he envisioned a grand Eastern empire to rival Rome. After massacring eighty thousand Roman citizens in 88 BC, he seized Greece and modern-day Turkey. Fighting some of the most spectacular battles in ancient history, he dragged Rome into a long round of wars and threatened to invade Italy itself. His uncanny ability to elude capture and surge back after devastating losses unnerved the Romans, while his mastery of poisons allowed him to foil assassination attempts and eliminate rivals.--From publisher description.
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Anyone who's studied ancient Roman history or at least read a halfway-decent book that covers ancient Roman history has probably encountered the name “Mithradates” a few times. Depending on certain factors (mostly whoever is writing the book/covering the course/textbooks involved in said course/etc.), Mithradates is portrayed either as an “Oriental despot” (and goodness but my Said-educated brain cringes at that phrase) the Romans deservedly crushed under their hobnailed boots; a rival ruler the Romans both respected and despised; or - as has been the case most recently - as a kind of freedom fighter struggling against the chokehold of Western (Roman) imperialism in that part of the world we now categorise as the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Mayor's book is of the lattermost sort, and is pretty fun to read because of that, even if it is rather dry and repetitive in places.
